The "feathers": when politics is embodied in words

January 14, 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy is at the podium, crowned with his inauguration for the presidential election which will take place five months later: "Me, a little Frenchman of mixed blood ..." The words come out of his mouth like the notes of a musical instrument. music. And the musician is Henri Guaino. He is in the front row of the audience. Her lips move. He silently recites the text a few seconds early. This speech, he knows it by heart, it is he who wrote it. He is the "feather". This scene, taken from the film The Conquest , sums up the relationship between politicians and those who write their speeches.

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"Few people are capable of doing this job," says Camille Pascal, Nicolas Sarkozy's pen between 2010 and 2012. It is not a question of talent in his words, but of personality. He explained: first, "we need a perfect understanding between the president and his pen" . Then, "impossible to be the pen of a president whom one despises, empathy and sympathy are essential"

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